Are you interested in applying for a
position in psychology at a small liberal arts institution? Here's
some advice, based on my involvement in about 13 searches over 15
years (at Union College and Skidmore College).

A successful application typically
includes the following:

1. Cover Letter

2. Curriculum Vitae

3. Research Portfolio

4. Teaching Portfolio

5. Letters of
Recommendation

I will talk about each of these parts
separately. For other sources of information, you might take a look
at:

One general piece of advice is to
check your application carefully for spelling and grammatical errors.
You'd probably benefit from having someone else read over your
materials before sending them out.

Cover Letter

First of all, the cover letter is
vitally important. You'd be amazed at the number of applications that
include either a very uninformative one-paragraph cover letter or a
cover letter that is not at all tailored to a small liberal arts
institution. Here's what you should be doing in your cover
letter:

1. Indicate that you are particularly
interested in working at a small liberal arts institution. If you
graduated from a small liberal arts institution, you might want to
talk about your experiences as a undergraduate and how they have led
you to apply for faculty positions at similar institutions. Give a
clear indication that you understand the priorities of small liberal
arts institutions (i.e., the emphasis on teaching). You might
consider highlighting the reasons that you prefer a position at a
small liberal arts institution to a university position, for
instance. We've had applicants state that they are looking for a
position that will allow them to relax, after working in a
high-powered position for X years. Not exactly the most endearing
tactic, and a clear indication that the applicant did not understand
the nature of small liberal arts institutions.

2. Briefly highlight your teaching
experience, with some indication of your success in the classroom. I
would save most of the details for a separate statement of teaching
philosophy, etc.

3. Briefly describe your research
program. Keep in mind that the small size of most departments will
mean that most of the people reading your application materials will
be (far) outside your research area.

4. Research the college/department to
which you are applying. If aspects of the college/department are
particularly attractive, talk about them in your cover
letter.

5. This is the least formal portion
of your application materials. Thus, it is here that your personality
is most likely to shine through (for good or ill).

6. People will read your cv
carefully, but don't hesitate to highlight those achievements that
you think are particularly noteworthy.

Curriculum Vitae

I don't have a lot of advice about
the cv. I do have a pet peeve. Some people with few publications try
to hide that fact by putting conference presentations, drafts under
review, drafts under consideration, etc., all together in one
section. No one is fooled by such a tactic, but if you manage to
annoy someone by doing so, that won't help your chances. [See
Brems, et al., Table 3]

Be sure that your cv reflects a
balance between teaching and research. A cv with lots of
publications, lots of information about research interests, etc., but
nothing about teaching is perceived as a statement of the
applicant's priorities. At minimum, you should indicate the courses
that you've taught and the courses that you are prepared to
teach.

Research
Portfolio

At minimum, your research portfolio
should include:

1. Reprints of
publications

2. Preprints of papers, grant
proposals, etc.

3. Research statement

The research statement can be very
useful to a reader who is not well versed in your research area. (And
that's the reader you should have in mind as you craft your
statement.) Try to give a clear sense of what is important about the
research you have done thus far in your career. If you have been
involved in a number of different research projects, indicate which
projects are likely to remain active. Talk about the directions that
you plan to pursue in the future. Be sure to indicate that
undergraduates are attracted to your research, especially if you've
worked with undergraduate research assistants in the past. If
undergraduates are co-authors on any of your publications, please
point that out somewhere in your materials.

If you don't do so in your cover
letter, be sure to address the issue of your ability to initiate and
complete a research program on an independent basis. If you have
technical skills (e.g., computer, electrical) that allow you to
function independently, be sure to mention them. Try to indicate that
you are ready to function independently &emdash; especially if you're
applying directly from a graduate program. Remember, you will no
longer have the cohort of similarly oriented and similarly trained
people around you that you enjoyed in graduate school, nor will you
have the technical support staff. Can you make a case for your
ability to get a research program off the ground in the context of a
small liberal arts institution?

Course syllabi are often quite
informative, so including a few representative syllabi.

If you've taught successfully in the
past, any evidence that you can supply to a prospective employer is
going to help your case. Student evaluations are useful, both
numerical ratings and open-ended statements from students. Faculty
evaluations are also useful. Our ads always ask specifically to have
applicants include such materials, yet they often fail to do so. Even
if the ad doesn't ask you to send evaluations, it is likely to aid
your case if you include them.

In your teaching statement, indicate
the courses that you are interested in teaching (even though these
should also be in your cv). Highlight those that you've already
taught. Check to be sure that your teaching interests are consistent
with the courses mentioned in the advertisement. Because teaching is
so central to the mission of small liberal arts institutions, you
should use this section of your application to clarify your love of
teaching and the success you've enjoyed to date. If you have a
particular style of teaching, you should address that in your
statement. Do you use one style in one course and a different style
in another course? What is your teaching philosophy? (If you haven't
given that issue much thought, you might not be cut out for a small
liberal arts institution.)

Most applicants have relatively
little teaching experience. If, however, you are a more senior person
applying for a position, I would include only the most recent
information about teaching in your portfolio. That is, only a few
recent syllabi, and course evaluations from the past year or
two.

Letters of
Recommendation

For the most part, the faculty
writing letters act as though they are recommending you for a
university position. I can't tell you the number of letters of
recommendation that contain the phrase, "Although I've never observed
X teach..." Huh? Why not? I know that you can't control the behavior
of your faculty mentors, but try to nudge them to observe you
teaching. Their letters will be strengthened considerably if they
address your teaching abilities.

In reading over thousands of letters
of recommendation, I can only remember reading two that were
negative. Thus, evaluation of letters of recommendation is tricky (at
best), with the reader trying to determine if the letter writer
didn't address a particular issue due to an oversight or due to an
attempt to sidestep the issue. It's always entertaining when the same
person has written letters of recommendation for several different
applicants.

If you have a student (or two) who
can write a strong letter for you, I would have them do so. This
approach can be a bit dicey, because a vacuous or poorly written
student letter may actually hurt you. However, a well-written and
informative letter from a former student can be very useful to your
application.

I'm sure that you recognize that the
job market is extraordinarily competitive. I've never seen fewer than
100 applicants for any of the searches with which I've been involved.
If you are unsuccessful in your pursuit of a suitable position, try
to get some honest feedback on your application materials. The
solution may be relatively simple (get more teaching experience, get
more publications, your cover letter created a mistaken impression of
your interests, etc.). If your package is without obvious flaws and
you're still not getting any nibbles, I can only imagine that you are
looking for work in an area that is filled with even stronger
applicants. All you can do is work to strengthen your cv and try
again.

I guess that's about it. Good luck!
If you can think of some advice that I should add to this compendium,
drop me a line.